The Annals of Iowa

Front Matter, The Annals of Iowa, v. 75 no. 3 Summer 2016

Review of: "Illinois in the War of 1812," by Gillum Ferguson

Jung, Patrick J.

266      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
textualize nearly all habitants’ actions as a reflection of their resistance 
to settler colonialism or their distinctive Creole values overwhelms 
other subtler ways to understand the motives of actors in this story. In 
a similar vein, some may find certain depictions of the communitarian 
Creole world romanticized, lacking in complexity. Of course this is a 
quibble about emphasis, not about substance. Great Lakes Creoles is a 
wonderful book, the best study I have read about a community facing 
settler colonialism in the nineteenth-century Midwest. 
 
 
Illinois in the War of 1812, by Gillum Ferguson. Urbana: University of 
Illinois Press, 2012. xvi, 349 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliog-
raphy, index. $34.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Patrick J. Jung is a professor of history and anthropology at the 
Milwaukee School of Engineering. He is working on a book on the history of 
the War of 1812 in the upper Mississippi River valley, and his article on the 
military history of Fort Madison appears in this issue of the Annals of Iowa. 
The recent bicentennial of the War of 1812 resulted in a spate of books, 
articles, and historical conferences dedicated to reexamining the legacy 
of that often forgotten conflict. The region including the western Great 
Lakes and the upper Mississippi River valley in particular remains 
probably the most overlooked theater of the war, which makes Gillum 
Ferguson’s book a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarly 
literature. Nevertheless, this book is not without its defects, particularly 
its approach to the Indian side of the conflict. 
 Ferguson begins by examining Illinois Territory on the eve of the 
war and paints an excellent portrait of the various Anglo-American, 
French Canadian, and Indian communities in the territory. The early 
losses of Mackinac Island and Detroit to the British-Indian alliance 
made the region of southern Illinois, where the majority of the Anglo-
Americans and French Canadians resided, vulnerable during the first 
year of the conflict. Even more significant was the assault by the Pot-
awatomies against the garrison of Fort Dearborn as it attempted to 
make its way to Fort Wayne in August 1812. Ferguson handles this 
oft-told tale with great clarity and provides copious citations to the 
various primary sources, which present a variety of irreconcilable fac-
tual differences that must be considered. Equally strong are his as-
sessments of the many secondary works that describe the battle. In-
deed, Ferguson’s book provides an outstanding bibliography of the 
Fort Dearborn saga that will be of great value to future scholars who 
research this topic. 
Book Reviews and Notices      267 
 Ferguson also asserts that the war effort in Illinois Territory suf-
fered from a lack of soldiers and resources as well as poor coordina-
tion between federal and territorial officials. The failure of Governor 
Ninian Edwards’s campaign in the autumn of 1812 to neutralize the 
military power of the Indians in the Illinois River valley was sympto-
matic of those defects. The next year, the construction of an American 
fortification at Peoria did much to stymie Indian war parties in the 
Illinois River valley, as did the American victories in other theaters, 
particularly William Henry Harrison’s victory at the Battle of the 
Thames. The final year of the war demonstrated that neither the Brit-
ish nor the Indians considered themselves defeated as they thwarted 
several expeditions that sought to extend American military power 
into the upper Mississippi River valley. Indian attacks against isolated 
settlements resulted in retaliatory raids by Americans, often against 
Indian communities that had made peace with the United States. Even 
after the war ended, Indian communities in Illinois Territory and other 
parts of the Old Northwest perceived themselves to be undefeated 
despite the seeming capitulation of their British allies. 
 This book is well researched, and Ferguson writes with flourish 
and grace. However, his failure to examine the complex dynamics of 
the British-Indian alliance is a definite weakness. His statement that 
the British in Canada “tampered with Indian tribes in U.S. territory” 
(1) suggests that Ferguson believes the native communities were mere 
British pawns. He would have done well to absorb the works of Rob-
ert S. Allen, Colin G. Calloway, Robert S. Owens, Timothy D. Willig, 
and John Grenier that have refined our understanding of the British-
Indian alliance in the Great Lakes region. The absence of those works 
in Ferguson’s book stands as a significant shortcoming. Moreover, the 
tone of the book suggests that Ferguson is constantly cheering for the 
white settlers against their Indian adversaries. It is telling that Fergu-
son describes the Indian assault against the Fort Dearborn garrison as 
a “massacre” (61). The destruction of a Kickapoo village later that year 
by the Illinois territorial militia, on the other hand, is described merely 
as an “attack” (83) even though twice as many people were killed 
(many of whom were women and children). The closing paragraph of 
the book in particular will cause scholars of Indian-white relations in 
the Old Northwest to wince: “What happened to the Indians was tragic, 
to be sure, but it was also inevitable, and the heroism of the generation 
of pioneers that subdued them must not be overshadowed by the 
darker aspects of the story. . . . It is all too easy, two hundred years later, 
for those who enjoy the wealth and security of the state they made, to 
condemn them for doing what they had to do to make it” (207). 
268      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 Ferguson’s meticulous research makes this book useful for stu-
dents of the War of 1812. In particular, he sheds light on lesser-known 
events and small battles that characterized this conflict in a region that 
has been largely ignored by scholars. However, readers will be well 
advised to supplement this work with those that present a more bal-
anced examination of the Indians’ participation in this conflict. 
 
 
A Settler’s Year: Pioneer Life Through the Seasons, by Kathleen Ernst; 
photographs by Loyd Heath. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society 
Press, 2015. 191 pp. Illustrations (mostly color), notes, bibliography, 
index. $29.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Jeff Bremer is assistant professor of history at Iowa State University. 
He is the author of A Store Almost in Sight: The Economic Transformation of Mis-
souri from the Louisiana Purchase to the Civil War (2014). 
This wonderfully illustrated book brings to life nineteenth-century 
Wisconsin settlement. Organized around the seasons that dictated 
farm life, A Settler’s Year does not provide a romanticized view of the 
life and work of farm families. It does detail the unceasing work, bitter 
winters, and other difficulties families faced. Enhanced with descrip-
tive quotes from original sources, most of the book is dedicated to tell-
ing the story of pioneer life through pictures. It contains only about 25 
pages of text, but has about 150 photos (mostly color) taken at Old 
World Wisconsin, a 500-acre living history museum with ten working 
farms and interpreters in period costume. This beautiful book will be 
of interest to anyone seeking a brief introduction to the frontier expe-
rience in the northern Midwest. 
 The text mostly focuses on the story of European immigrants to 
Wisconsin, who made up about a third of the population of the state 
before the Civil War. Germans, Poles, Norwegians, and English came 
by the thousands each year, pushed out of their homelands by high 
taxes, military service, religious oppression, or a lack of economic op-
portunity. Their experience in Wisconsin was much like that of new 
settlers across the northern United States. They found seemingly end-
less labor, isolation, and loneliness, made tolerable by rural bonds of 
cooperation that provided support for farm families. 
 Each season has a short narrative, describing the work and daily 
life of pioneers. In spring, families planted crops and everyone com-
pleted chores as the days grew longer. Women and girls cared for 
gardens, while children guarded fields. One girl remembered her fa-
ther saying that kids were cheaper than fences. In summer, all helped 
to cut and store hay, suffering from mosquitos, as they battled birds 


English

Illinois in the War of 1812

Lonely Sentinel: A Military History of Fort Madison, 1808-1813

Back Matter, The Annals of Iowa, v. 75 no. 1 Winter 2016

Review of: "Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941–1946," by David Lucander

Anderson-Bricker, Kristin

Book Reviews and Notices      93 
ect failed to alter white depictions of southern states in the federal 
guides. Further, overtly political art provided grist for conservative 
attacks on the art projects specifically, and against the New Deal more 
broadly. Finally, Musher judges the “art as experience” approach as 
the most successful because the sense of public ownership of the arts 
outlasted the New Deal in the form of community art centers, the 
popularization of folk cultures, and progressive art education.  
 Musher applies her history of New Deal arts funding to contem-
porary questions of arts funding. Warning of the political implications 
of using art as a weapon, and lamenting the purely economic justifica-
tions used by recent supporters of federal art funding, Musher argues 
that advocates should take a lesson from the 1930s art-as-experience 
activists who argued that, beyond creating jobs and stimulating the 
economy, the arts “make us more thoughtful, satisfied, and engaged 
citizens” (218). 
 
 
Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 
1941–1946, by David Lucander. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: 
University of Illinois Press, 2014. xi, 320 pp. Illustrations, appendixes, 
notes, bibliography, index. $55.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer Kristin Anderson-Bricker is associate professor of history at Loras 
College. Her Ph.D. dissertation (Syracuse University, 1997) was “Making a 
Movement: The Meaning of Community in the Congress of Racial Equality, 
1958–1968.” 
Although history textbooks mention the threatened March on Wash-
ington in 1941 for jobs and freedom, most Americans are unfamiliar 
with the March on Washington Movement (MOWM) that took place 
during World War II. In fact, A. Philip Randolph initiated a national 
movement that proved most successful at the local level. In Winning 
the War for Democracy, David Lucander goes beyond the activities sur-
rounding Randolph to explore the MOWM in St. Louis, Missouri. Lu-
cander sees the St. Louis chapter as the most dynamic and successful 
of the 37 branches (73). These local activists shared a commitment to 
the Double V campaign announced by the Philadelphia Courier in 1942. 
World War II provided a unique opportunity for African Americans to 
express their patriotism by helping to defeat fascism abroad and rac-
ism at home. While black men fought foreign enemies, those African 
Americans remaining on the home front worked to make democracy 
real in their communities. The all-black organization saw employment 
as a route to a better life, so local chapters focused on increasing Afri-
can Americans’ access first to defense industry jobs and later to skilled 
94      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
work in private companies and public utilities. They also protested 
segregation in public accommodations. 
 MOWM evolved from a one-time march intended to force the 
federal government to live up to the promise of Executive Order 8802, 
issued in June 1941, which barred discrimination by industries receiving 
federal funds. The order also established the Fair Employment Prac-
tices Commission (FEPC) to investigate complaints of racial bias by 
defense contractors. Given little money or manpower, the FEPC relied 
on local chapters of the MOWM to investigate complaints of discrimi-
nation. Members of MOWM chapters also used nonviolent direct ac-
tion to pressure businesses to comply with the executive order. Work-
ing primarily through mass meetings, marches, and picket lines, local 
activists threatened federal intervention if industries failed to democ-
ratize their hiring practices. The St. Louis group targeted two defense 
industries: Carter Carburetor and U.S. Cartridge. They also pressured 
Southwestern Bell Telephone to open up professional positions as 
switchboard operators to black women. Finally, the St. Louis MOWM 
undertook a campaign to integrate department store lunch counters 
using sit-ins during the summer of 1944. 
 David Lucander effectively situates this study in relation to the 
historiography of the struggle for black equality. By discussing both 
the national MOWM and the St. Louis chapter, he explores the inter-
play between a national organization and its grassroots branches. He 
confirms that local chapters both relied upon national infrastructure 
and acted independently. He demonstrates the localism of the chapter 
by charting the collaboration across organizations that occurred in St. 
Louis throughout the war, while at the same time the national offices 
of the NAACP and Urban League refused to collaborate with A. Philip 
Randolph’s upstart movement. Lucander also documents the differen-
tiation between male and female roles in the MOWM. While males 
served in all public leadership roles, females constituted the bulk of the 
grassroots membership and labored extensively to achieve the group’s 
goals. Finally, he situates the activism as part of “the long movement.” 
Although today we see their efforts as a precursor to the civil rights 
movement, they saw their actions as a continuation of progressivism 
and the New Deal. 
 Winning the War for Democracy presents the argument that a mid-
western community offered the most significant fight against racism 
during World War II. Lucander succeeds in conveying the centrality of 
this small group of people in St. Louis to extending the influence of the 
aborted March on Washington and Executive Order 8802. He also 
humanizes and individualizes the movement by providing detailed 
Book Reviews and Notices      95 
discussion of the local people who make movements happen. Two of 
the MOWM’s particularly powerful driving forces were their belief in 
the psychological importance of an all-black movement and the cen-
trality of respectability. To prove racists wrong, MOWM insisted on 
African Americans conducting themselves with dignity and refinement. 
The St. Louis MOWM also emphasized collaboration across class lines 
and affiliations. Lucander especially excels at exploring the network 
created by reformers who labored against racism during World War II. 
If judged by its eight-point program, MOWM cannot be judged success-
ful. But Lucander sees it as a success: “MOWM served as a conduit, 
introducing and refining techniques that would ultimately overthrow 
de jure racial segregation in the United States within the next two dec-
ades” (176). The organization also fostered leadership skills in its mem-
bers, and some of these “individuals would use their experiences of 
fighting racism in World War II to jump-start a lifetime of activism” 
(192). 
The Crops Look Good: News from a Midwestern Family Farm, by Sara 
DeLuca. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2015. ix, 254 pp. 
Map, illustrations, family tree, source notes, index. $17.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Pamela Riney-Kehrberg is professor of history at Iowa State Univer-
sity. She is the author of The Nature of Childhood: An Environmental History of 
Growing Up in America since 1865 (2014) and Childhood on the Farm: Work, Play, 
and Coming of Age in the Midwest (2005). 
Poet and writer Sara DeLuca grew up in Polk County, Wisconsin. The 
Crops Look Good: News from a Midwestern Family Farm is the story of her 
parents and grandparents, told through family letters, local news-
papers, and family lore, including oral histories. The family was large. 
As the parents’ nine children left home and made their way to farms, 
jobs, and marriages, they wrote to their mother about their new expe-
riences, and she, in turn, wrote to them about life at home on the farm. 
Woven through all of this are bits and pieces of local and national news. 
There’s a lot going on in this story, with cows being milked, school 
being taught, and babies being born. It’s a particular family’s story, 
but one that will seem familiar to those with roots in the nation’s rural 
midsection. 
 There is much that this book does right. It is well written and en-
gaging and successfully takes readers to an earlier era of family farm-
ing in the upper Midwest. One problem with the writing, however, is 
that the author has written in the present tense, which is a bit of a jolt 
in a family history. Once the reader adjusts to that, however, it be-


Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941-1946

Review of: "Barnstorming the Prairies: How Aerial Vision Shaped the Midwest," by Jason Weem

Simonsen, Jane

454      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
the rune stone story, particularly in the face of renewed immigration to 
Minnesota from other parts of the world and new communities com-
peting for Minnesotan—and American—identities.  
 This is an excellent contribution to the long history of rune stone 
discourse. Krueger’s disciplinary background brings a fresh and potent 
perspective to the subject. Scholarly in his approach and format, Krue-
ger supports his ideas with deep knowledge of rune stone texts, events, 
pageants, comic books, and speeches and the views of both prominent 
supporters and detractors. In addition to its local interest, the book will 
be fascinating for anyone exploring how civic myths are constructed, 
and in this case how a region can appropriate civil religious ideas for its 
own purposes and to help construct its own identity by reimagining its 
history, creating its own rituals, and defining itself against other groups 
in a national context. Krueger’s study makes a valuable contribution to 
regional and immigration history and elucidates the role that civil reli-
gious rituals play in defining a community’s identity. 
 
 
Barnstorming the Prairies: How Aerial Vision Shaped the Midwest, by Jason 
Weems. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. xxvi, 340 pp. 
Illustrations (some in color), notes, bibliography, index. $122.50 hard-
cover, $35.00 paperback.  
Reviewer Jane Simonsen is associate professor of history at Augustana College, 
Rock Island, Illinois. She is the author of “On Level Ground: Alexander Gard-
ner’s Photographs of the Kansas Prairies” in Recovering the Prairies (1999). 
Barnstorming the Prairies makes the Midwest’s dubious reputation as 
“flyover country” worth a double-take. In this image-rich investigation 
of prairie landscapes, aerial views become the defining angle of a mod-
ern perspective that shaped agricultural policy, regional art, and archi-
tectural innovation in the first decades of the twentieth century. Earlier 
midwesterners primarily experienced the landscape as horizontal, but 
the prospects enabled by flight shifted their visual axis to the vertical, 
reorienting ocular perceptions of “progress.” Weems’s study performs 
a similar function, creating a fresh take on visual studies of midwestern 
landscapes by ascending to the aerial.  
 Elevated prospects were not an entirely modern invention. Bird’s-
eye views date back to the Renaissance and were a common way to rep-
resent the expansionist’s romance of distance. Gridded landscapes—
emphasizing equality, control, and individual opportunity—operated 
in conjunction with other methods of spatial understanding, including 
topographical maps, farmstead lithographs, and citizens’ profiles. Ag-
ricultural crises during the interwar years made this idealism untenable 
Book Reviews and Notices      455 
just as flight enabled new prospects. Aerial surveys, especially those 
made by the government, became directives validating the need for 
new forms of federal management, in part by convincing farmers of the 
limitations of their earthbound perspectives. 
 The final two chapters are devoted to Grant Wood and Frank Lloyd 
Wright, arguing that airborne prospects influenced their artistry in com-
plex ways. Wood’s work as a wartime camouflage artist evolved into 
aerial/terrestrial tensions that are essential to the ambivalent render-
ings of past and present, modern and nostalgic, yeoman and capitalist, 
that characterize Wood’s paintings. Wright, known for his horizontal 
Prairie Style architecture, nonetheless drew on vertical vision in an 
attempt to subvert growing disjunctures between urban and rural 
landscapes. His plan for “Broadacre City” anticipated a midwestern 
modernity that Weems terms “Jeffersonian urbanism” (218).  
 As it was for the aerial photographers he studies, Weems’s strength 
is his ability to link seemingly disparate cultural elements into a unified 
whole that unsettles familiar perspectives. Alfred Andreas’s 1875 Illus-
trated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, which brought together aerial 
views with town maps and narratives, serves as a touchstone for read-
ing the comprehensive nature of even single photographs. Each of the 
chapters takes on an oft-studied topic—the magisterial gaze of the grid, 
Farm Security Administration photographs, Wood, Wright—and locates 
new “visual homologies” (191) in texts ranging from advertisements 
to geographic information system readouts that, taken together, attest to 
the interlocking influences of aerial systems of knowing. For example, 
although the grid has been studied as a system of control, few scholars 
have interrogated how the grid operated in conjunction with other 
nineteenth-century systems of knowing and seeing. Furthermore, 
Weems traces the elevated view into the twentieth century, exploring 
its evolution in conjunction with technological, cultural, and political 
change. Images of comprehensive—and thus abstract—aerial views are 
deftly linked to farm life photographs to indicate how the magisterial 
gaze inflected even seemingly domestic visions. A slightly elevated Soil 
Conservation Service image of a farmer plowing his field becomes evi-
dence of the photographer’s intent to “disrupt the expected trajectory of 
vision” in order to validate modern farming techniques (67).  
 Weems convincingly argues that the aerial gaze was deeply influ-
ential, yet the conflation of midwesterner, farmer, and landowner raises 
questions about who constructed these views, to whom they were most 
available, and who was most likely to adopt them as part of their world-
view. Weems is successful in divorcing the magisterial gaze from a simple 
association with power, connecting it, in most cases, to views available 
456      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
to the masses. Yet the visionaries and viewers Weems investigates are 
primarily male—from photographers, boosters, mapmakers, and artists 
to an implied audience of land-owning individuals who bought prop-
erty, worked with agents, and made decisions. Gender is apparent in 
some analyses; Weems makes an intriguing connection between a pho-
tograph of quilters and the ways that Life editors may have imagined 
resonances between domestic ritual and the “agricultural future” (123). 
What happens when women claim aerial perspective? Would the per-
ceptions and experiences of women working on farms in the 1930s and 
1940s have been affected in the same way by aerial views as men’s were? 
Perhaps, but that possibility is only hinted at in the conclusion, which 
begins with a discussion of the “cognitive transformations” intimated 
by Dorothy’s aerial exodus to the land of Oz in the influential 1939 film 
(254).  
 The conclusion, like the rest of the book, opens the door to new in-
terpretations of midwestern landscapes, particularly as they pertain to 
mass culture. Enthusiasts of visual culture, history, and rural life should 
welcome this book, which performs significant cultural work itself in re-
orienting scholarly views of the Midwest, and is a strong contribution 
to the current recentering of the Midwest in American culture studies.  
 
 
Missing Millie Benson: The Secret Case of the Nancy Drew Ghostwriter and 
Journalist, by Julie K. Rubini. Biographies for Young Readers. Athens: 
Ohio University Press, 2015. viii, 123 pp. Illustrations, sidebars, appen-
dixes, notes, bibliography. $28.95 hardcover, $14.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Michella M. Marino is assistant professor of history at Hastings Col-
lege in Hastings, Nebraska. Her master’s research focused on young girls grow-
ing up in the Midwest during the World War II era. 
Much like author Julie K. Rubini, as a young girl I, too, was drawn to the 
yellow-spined mystery novels starring the independent amateur sleuth 
Nancy Drew. Despite my interest, I never gave much thought to Car-
olyn Keene, the author of the Nancy Drew books. Had I looked more 
deeply into Keene’s life, it would not have mattered, because, as Rubini 
explains, “There is no Carolyn Keene. There never was” (1).  
 Thus, Rubini establishes a mystery surrounding the original ghost-
writer of the series, Millie Benson, and why she only gained authorial 
recognition after a 1980 court case and a Nancy Drew conference held 
at the University of Iowa in 1993. Rubini sets up her biography for 
young readers in the same charming, formulaic manner as the Nancy 
Drew books, right down to her use of “holding points,” the concluding 
hook at the end of each chapter that compels readers to turn the page. 


Barnstorming the Prairies: How Aerial Vision Shaped the Midwest

Review of: "Civil War Nurse Narratives, 1863–1870," by Daneen Wardro

McDevitt, Theresa

438      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
Civil War Nurse Narratives, 1863–1870, by Daneen Wardrop. Iowa City: 
University of Iowa Press, 2015. ix, 267 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliog-
raphy, index. $55.00 paperback. 
Reviewer Theresa McDevitt is Resident Librarian for the College of Humanities 
and Social Sciences, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of “ ‘A 
Melody Before Unknown’: The Civil War Experiences of Mary and Amanda 
Shelton” (Annals of Iowa, 2004). 
Eager recruits joined the Union army at the start of the Civil War, but 
the military was ill equipped to deal with their unprecedented numbers. 
Camps were hurriedly organized with inadequate housing, clothing, 
food, and sanitary conditions. Almost immediately, soldiers began falling 
ill and dying from camp diseases. It did not take long for reports of mis-
erable camp conditions to filter back to women at home who wished to 
support the war effort and who felt responsible for the health and well-
being of their friends and relatives—and of all soldiers risking their lives 
for the sake of the nation. Prior to the war, a vocal group of women had 
been pushing for a greater role in society and defying conventions by 
taking more public roles in reform work associated with protection 
of the family and moral improvement. The wartime crisis led many 
women to take a further step—the daring choice to serve as wartime 
nurse/relief worker. At the time, nursing outside the home was not a 
respectable profession for women, and traveling across the county un-
chaperoned to reach men in need was perceived as a reckless act that 
endangered life, limb, and reputation. Nonetheless, in the course of the 
war at least 20,000 American women provided relief services in one 
form or another. Between 1863 and 1870, at least 12 of those women 
wrote book-length narratives chronicling their wartime experiences.  
 In the present volume, Daneen Wardrop, who has written before 
about the literature of the Civil War era, takes a new look at seven of 
the works from that “first wave” of wartime narratives, classifying them 
as distinct from later memoirs and as a subgenre of Civil War literature 
whose authors adopted the rhetoric of antebellum reform to engage 
their readers and explain their wartime experiences. Chapters treat each 
of the seven women’s writings and diverse experiences, but all provide 
basic information on their lives prior to the war, their travels, their mo-
tivations for volunteering, and the difficulties they encountered when 
they brought their domestic expertise to what they often perceived as 
the professionalized, cold, and overly bureaucratic hospital setting.  
 Authors examined differed. Some (such as Louisa May Alcott) were 
well known during the war; others wrote anonymously. Some served 
for long periods perilously near the front; others arrived at calmer loca-
tions behind the lines after the fighting had ended and stayed for short 
Book Reviews and Notices      439 
periods. In spite of the differences, Wardrop is able to discuss common 
themes in all the works, specifically those relating to the woman question, 
interracial interactions, and development of a national character through 
patriotism. 
 More comprehensive studies of women’s wartime relief work have 
been written—Jane Schultz’s Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil 
War America (2004) is probably the most comprehensive—along with 
hundreds of individual studies of Civil War nurses’ writings, but this 
work is unique in its focus on this subset of wartime writings that ap-
peared during the war or shortly thereafter. Also, its focus on the works 
as narratives crafted in response to the most significant cultural themes 
of the period, and how they differed from later nurse narratives, is a 
novel and interesting interpretation that is valuable in telling the war-
time story of these women while also illustrating the cultural context 
in which they lived. None of the women discussed was from Iowa, 
but their stories are quite similar to those of Iowa relief workers such as 
Annie Turner Wittenmyer (who wrote her wartime narrative later), and 
the interpretive framework might be applied to those works as well. 
 
 
Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West, edited by Virginia Scharff. 
Oakland: Autry National Center of the American West in association 
with University of California Press, 2015. xv, 224 pp. Map, illustrations, 
notes, index. $34.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Ginette Aley is adjunct professor of history at Washburn University 
and a Carey Fellow at Kansas State University. She coedited Union Heartland: 
The Midwestern Home Front during the Civil War (2013). 
The Civil War not only embroiled the North and South as a sectional 
conflict, but encompassed the entire nation. The driving wedge, as 
historian and editor Virginia Scharff notes, was westward expansion. 
Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West is a nicely illustrated col-
lection of 11 essays edited by Scharff, a companion volume to the Civil 
War and the West exhibit at the Autry National Center curated by Car-
olyn Brucken. One of the volume’s strengths is its overriding focus on 
the exhibit’s material culture and the narrative contexts of the items in 
an otherwise wide-ranging and exceptionally well-written set of essays. 
 The narratives of westward expansion often fail to highlight the 
tragic ironies and the ways liberty was asserted by some yet denied to 
others. Brenda E. Stevenson’s “The Price of Slavery across Empire” of-
fers an engaging description of how the cost of slavery went far beyond 
the bill of sale for the enslaved people brought to Texas in the 1850s. 


Civil War Nurse Narratives, 1863-1870

Barker-Devine, Jenny

Why, you can be a journalist, kid: The Emerald Goose and Women's Journalism at Iowa State College during World War I

Review of: "A Rainbow Division Lieutenant in France: The World War I Diary of John H. Taber," edited by Stephen H. Taber

Margis, Matthew J.

278      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
ships with many Skunk Hill descendants, whose oral histories molded 
Birmingham’s reverent account of their people. At times, his book 
seems unshaped by some recent developments in the field of Native 
American history. This is reflected in the thin bibliography. But engag-
ing in nuanced debates with specialists is not Birmingham’s goal; nor 
is he writing exclusively for a scholarly audience. Quite the opposite—
Skunk Hill aims squarely at general readers, and its purpose is to wrap 
that place in a broader historical context. Throughout, Birmingham 
ably weaves the processes of removal and cultural and spiritual as-
saults that indigenous peoples endured in the late nineteenth and early 
twentieth centuries into his discussion of Skunk Hill. Accordingly, this 
book will give novice readers a good sense of the overarching trajectory 
of Indian policy—not to mention a stellar example of an indigenous 
survival strategy—during this period.  
 Driven by a good story and filled with maps, photographs, and 
two excellent charts of the Skunk Hill census and the many allotments 
that shaped this community, Skunk Hill is a fun, respectful, and rele-
vant contribution to the history of Native peoples in Wisconsin and 
the Midwest. It will undoubtedly be cited by specialists, prized by 
Skunk Hill descendants, and enjoyed by regional history enthusiasts. 
 On a final note, Skunk Hill has opened a few leads that Iowa histo-
rians could pursue fruitfully. According to the Iowa General Assem-
bly’s legislative record from 1858, a cohort of Potawatomies secured 
permission that March to reside in Iowa. Unlike the Meskwaki Nation 
—which received a similar authorization in 1856 and still resides on its 
settlement near Tama—the Potawatomies do not seem to have stuck 
around the Hawkeye state. Who were these Iowa Potawatomies, and 
did they have any connection with those who founded Skunk Hill four 
decades later? Additionally, a religious movement called “the Drum 
Society” was active on the Meskwaki settlement in the middle of the 
twentieth century and was discussed at some length by the “Fox Proj-
ect” anthropologists who spent time there in the 1940s and 1950s. Was 
this another sect of the Skunk Hill Drum Dance? If so, did it make its 
way to Iowa from Wisconsin, or vice versa? 
 Skunk Hill offers a great deal to historians of the Midwest. Perhaps 
best of all, however, between its cracks an essay on Iowa’s Potawatomi 
history lies in wait.  
 
 
A Rainbow Division Lieutenant in France: The World War I Diary of John H. 
Taber, edited by Stephen H. Taber. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 
2015. viii, 312 pp. Map, illustrations, notes, index. $29.95 paperback. 
Book Reviews and Notices      279 
Reviewer Matthew J. Margis is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Iowa State Uni-
versity. He is working on a dissertation about the evolution of the National 
Guard during the Progressive Era. 
John H. Taber’s edited diary, A Rainbow Division Lieutenant in France, 
recounts his wartime experiences as a reserve officer attached to the 
168th Infantry Regiment (Iowa National Guard) of the 42nd Infantry 
Division, also known as the Rainbow Division. Stephen Taber edited 
and transcribed his second cousin’s wartime diary with few altera-
tions, although he updated some of the antiquated language to appeal 
to a modern audience. He also chose to eliminate the daily date entries, 
which creates some confusion, though it does little to hinder the diary’s 
flow. The editor did cross-reference the diary’s information to ensure 
factual accuracy. 
  Overall, this diary serves as an interesting firsthand account. As 
a primary source, the book provides valuable insights into the mindset 
and day-to-day activities of an officer in the French trenches during 
World War I. Although Taber was not an Iowan, he did serve with an 
Iowa National Guard regiment, so this account of his experiences will 
appeal to anyone interested in Iowa’s wartime history. In many ways, 
the book complements Hugh H. Thompson’s transcribed diary, Trench 
Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France, edited 
by Robert H. Ferrell (2004), which also recounts the experiences of an 
army officer attached to the 168th Regiment. However, because this is 
a diary, anyone seeking an analytical account of World War I or life in 
the trenches will need to look elsewhere. 
 
 
American Organic: A Cultural History of Farming, Gardening, Shopping, 
and Eating, by Robin O’Sullivan. CultureAmerica Series. Lawrence: 
University Press of Kansas, 2015. 382 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliog-
raphy, index. $34.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Barbara J. Dilly is associate professor of anthropology at Creighton 
University and an Iowa resident. Her research and writing focus on, among 
other things, rural communities and sustainability. 
Through a kaleidoscopic interdisciplinary lens, Robin O’Sullivan ex-
amines what is really on our plates when we decide to eat organic. 
Large, looming, complex, and interconnected issues are embedded in 
the individual question “what’s for dinner” in America. This historical 
analysis of the American organic movement provides a new critical 
paradigm to tackle the complexity of what is at stake within organic 
farming, gardening, shopping, and eating decisions in terms of health, 
food justice, and environmental sustainability. O’Sullivan examines 


A Rainbow Division Lieutenant in France: The World War I Diary of John H. Taber

Review of: The Wisconsin Historical Society: Collecting, Preserving, and Sharing Stories since 1846, by John Zim

Krugler, John D.

Book Reviews and Notices      185 
problems that St. Louis faced over the years, such as the city-county 
divide and the post–World War II problems of segregation and white 
flight, but his focus is primarily on the “imperial quest” part of St. 
Louis history, while the “urban crisis” story receives much less atten-
tion. Perhaps future work will more clearly illustrate exactly how an 
international economic focus, especially during the Cold War era, led 
to a willful abdication of civic responsibilities by the city’s elites. 
 Nonetheless, Berger’s book offers an insightful reinterpretation of 
St. Louis’s history and clearly shows that the city deserves a spot at the 
table when discussing the historical evolution of American foreign pol-
icy. One may hope that it will serve as a catalyst for additional studies 
to see if similar historical patterns can be found in other midwestern 
cities, such as Des Moines, Omaha, Chicago, or Kansas City. Civic 
leaders in those communities likely shared a common outlook with 
their historic St. Louis contemporaries, and those cities no doubt also 
played a role in the growth of America’s international economic empire. 
 
 
The Wisconsin Historical Society: Collecting, Preserving, and Sharing Stories 
since 1846, by John Zimm. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 
2015. vi, 152 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, index. $25.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer John D. Krugler is professor emeritus of history at Marquette Uni-
versity. His most recent book is Creating Old World Wisconsin: The Struggle to 
Build an Outdoor Museum of Ethnic Architecture (2013). 
Writing history that is readily accessible to general audiences is not 
easy. To succeed, the author must be an accomplished storyteller, 
someone who does not get bogged down in endless detail. John Zimm, 
an associate editor at the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, the pub-
lisher of this book, has produced a very readable, condensed account 
of the creation and development of the Wisconsin Historical Society 
(WHS). The book, a revision of an article Zimm published in the State of 
Wisconsin Blue Book for the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, 
will appeal to readers who know little about the society.  
 In many ways, this is a remarkable book. At 169 years old, the 
WHS has a rich and fascinating history that does not lend itself to a 
123-page text. Zimm makes no pretense to offer an in-depth critical 
analysis of the society. Rather, he shares a number of stories from the 
society’s long past. He does not have a thesis. Not surprisingly, he 
presents the society in very positive terms. Nasty battles over budgets, 
the complicated relationship with the state, and the financial battles 
over the growth of historic sites, for example, are given short shrift.  
186      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 The author alludes to many important developments. The society’s 
early leaders held contesting visions, with one group favoring a restricted 
membership that conferred social status and recognized cultural at-
tainment, while others advocated a more democratic society with an 
open, dues-paying membership. The latter concept won the day. That, 
in turn, led to the issue of state funding. The first directors, Lyman 
Draper and Reuben Gold Thwaites, disagreed: Draper wanted the 
society to be self-sustaining; Thwaites looked to the state for funding. 
Thwaites’s triumph helped to make the WHS different from “its older 
more conservative sisters in the Eastern States” (22). Another relation-
ship established by Thwaites also contributed to the society’s distinc-
tiveness. Recognizing that most of the users of the library were Univer-
sity of Wisconsin students and faculty, he chose to “hitch the Society’s 
star” (23) to the rapidly growing university. That was mutually bene-
ficial, as the WHS library became the university’s American history 
library.  
 In time, as its rich library and archival resources increased, the 
WHS focused on serving the needs of scholars. The founding idea of 
serving as the people’s society faded but never disappeared. Begin-
ning with the tenures of the post–World War II directors—Kenneth 
Alexander, Clifford Lord, and Leslie H. Fishel Jr.—the WHS reconnected 
with this important aspect of its past. These leaders committed to 
making the WHS more accessible to the state’s residents. Historic 
preservation, a new Wisconsin Magazine of History, greater involvement 
with local historical societies and communities, and, above all, the de-
velopment of an extensive historic sites program, brought the society 
closer to its roots: the general public. The library and archives signifi-
cantly bolstered the society’s public presence by catering to genealogists 
and history buffs. The WHS has again embraced both its scholarly and 
public roles.  
 
 
The Two-Wheeled World of George B. Thayer, by Kevin J. Hayes. Lincoln: 
University of Nebraska Press, 2015. xv, 257 pp. Illustrations, notes, 
index. $28.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer James Whiteside is a retired history professor and the author of Old 
Blue’s Road: A Historian’s Motorcycle Journeys in the American West. 
In his 2002 book, An American Cycling Odyssey, 1887, Kevin Hayes 
chronicled the cross-country bicycle adventure of newspaperman 
George Nellis. In The Two-Wheeled World of George B. Thayer, Hayes 
follows with the biography of a very different, and more prolific, bicy-


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